Filed under: Budget , Plants/Manufacturing , Toyota , UAW/Unions , India The Detroit News reported today that Toyota will restart production at two Indian plants, following a shutdown on Monday. Factory labor, management and police in Asia engage in the kind of violent altercations that we’re not used to, having almost entirely walked away from the overtly brutal relations epitomized by the Pinkerton Detective Agency and the Flint Sit-Down Strike . In India, a plant owned by a Ford transmission supplier plant was shut down in 2009 after incidents between workers and armed men around the same time as Ssangyong workers occupied a factory in South Korea , in 2012 Suzuki Maruti workers rioted over wages around the same time upset employees beat a ceramics factory president to death in retaliation for a labor leader’s killing. Toyota is the latest to company trying to avoid that road. The Detroit Free Press reported earlier this week that it shut down two plants in India after 11 months of acrimonious wage negotiations and arbitration have gone nowhere. Toyota said the plant workers in Bidadi, near Bangalore, had deliberately stopped production at times over the past 45 days and threatened management. The workers said they wanted their wages raised by an amount already agreed to by management, but that management had reneged; news reports weren’t clear on the amount, some saying nearly 10,000 rupees ($165 US) more per month, another saying 4,000 rupees ($65 US), but reports agree that Toyota has said it will only go as high as 3,050 rupees ($50 US). Terms of today’s resolution have not been released, but we do know that production will begin again on Monday, March 24. Toyota temporarily idles pair of Indian plants due to labor unrest originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 20 Mar 2014 18:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds .

Filed under: Car Buying , GM , Toyota , Volkswagen Every year when we start talking about which automaker is the biggest in the world, there always seems to be at least a little bit of controversy. For 2013, Toyota handily took the top spot with 9.98 million sales, but it’s the runner up spot between General Motors and Volkswagen that is starting to create a stir. Based on our earlier report , GM’s 9.71 million vehicles put it in second place ahead of VW’s 9.5-million-vehicle effort. Now, The Detroit News is reporting that VW is claiming a tally of 9.73 million sales, including figures from MAN and Scania – heavy-duty truck divisions under the VW AG family. The article points out that Toyota’s sales figure includes its Hino line of trucks, but these might still be considered light-duty vehicles while MAN and Scania build tractor trailers. VW is world’s second-best-selling automaker, GM falls to third originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 30 Jan 2014 18:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

Filed under: Car Buying , Crossover , Toyota , Electric If you’re in the market for a new electric vehicle, now is definitely the time to buy or lease. Following price drops on just about every other EV on the market, Toyota is looking to push a few more all-electric RAV4 crossovers out the door over the Labor Day weekend. The Detroit News is reporting that, through September 3, anyone looking to get into a RAV4 EV in Los Angeles or San Francisco, can get a deal: a $299 a month lease (no word on down payment, though) or zero-percent financing for 60 months for buyers. The $49,800 RAV4 EV normally leases for twice as much – $599 a month – so this move could be an attempt to sell more of the 2,600 units Toyota has planned to produce . Or maybe, if you thought $599 was a fair price, you can now get two RAV4 Evs. Although temporary, the price drop comes at a time when many other EVs on the market have had their prices reduced, including the Nissan Leaf , Chevy Volt , Smart Fortwo ED and Honda Fit EV , not to mention already low prices for the Fiat 500e and Chevy Spark EV . *Note: 2012 RAV4 EV pictured here Toyota RAV4 EV lease gets cut in half to $299/month originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 27 Aug 2013 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

Filed under: Government/Legal , Safety , Toyota , Earnings/Financials A total of 22.6 million current and former Toyota owners have been sent notices that they may be eligible to receive compensation from the automaker for damages related to the unintended acceleration fiasco that has dominated headlines in 2009 and 2010. The total payout may be as high as $1.63 billion, according to The Detroit News . Steve Berman, a lawyer for the owners, calls the potential deal “a landmark, if not a record, settlement in automobile defects class action litigation in the United States.” Still, there’s some debate about whether or not Toyota’s proposed settlement is fair, as it includes $30 million for safety research and driver education programs – in other words, Toyota seems to be suggesting that drivers need more education on how to drive their correctly working and fully functional vehicles. For those keeping track, Toyota would also be paying lawyer fees of $200 million. A US District Judge in California is scheduled to hold a so-called “fairness hearing” on June 14 that could decide the fate of this particular settlement. Further courtroom wrangling will be required to hash out any wrongful death suits levied against Toyota stemming from unintended acceleration claims, as those are not part of this class-action suit. Toyota sudden acceleration class action may cover 22 million owners originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 16 May 2013 09:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink

Filed under: Hybrid , Recalls , Safety , Hatchback , Toyota The Detroit News is reporting that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will investigate some 561,000 Toyota Prius models for potentially defective steering shafts. The affected hybrid models are from the 2004-2009 model years. The story indicates that NHTSA is weighing whether or not to grant a defect petition, which claims that Toyota incorrectly assembled the hatchback’s steering linkage. As of this writing, there is no recall. However, a recall based on the Prius steering shaft would be the third related to steering issues for the model since 2006. Seven years ago, Toyota recalled 170K Prius models for potential cracking of the intermediate shafts, and in November of 2012, the automaker recalled 670K units to replace the steering shaft extension assembly. We’ll be monitoring NHTSA’s signals to see if this investigation turns into a full-fledged recall. For now, stay tuned. NHTSA investigating 561k Toyota Prius hybrids for possible steering shaft defect originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 25 Feb 2013 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds .

Filed under: Government/Legal , Safety , Lexus , Toyota Toyota’s sales seem to have rebounded from the unintended acceleration issues from 2009 and 2010, but the automaker is far from done dealing with this situation. Following a settlement worth up to $1.4 billion for economic loss to affected vehicle owners, Toyota has settled rather than going to trial in a wrongful death lawsuit stemming from an accident in Utah in 2010 that left two passengers dead. This isn’t the first case in which Toyota has settled, but it was the first among a consolidated group of cases being held in Santa Ana, CA. According to The Detroit News , this case was scheduled to take place next month, and it was for a November 2010 incident in which Paul Van Alfen and Charlene James Lloyd were killed in a Camry when, based on findings by the Utah Highway Patrol, the accelerator got stuck causing the car to speed out of control and hit a wall; the terms of the settlement were not announced. The article says that while Toyota will settle on some cases, it doesn’t plan on settling on all of them as it still wants to be able to “defend [its] product at trial.” This will probably be the case in suits claiming that software for the drive-by-wire accelerator was the cause of an accident in a Toyota or Lexus vehicle. The question of whether or not the electronic accelerator played any role in this problem has been a hot-button topic since the beginning. Toyota has issued recalls in the past to attempt to prevent unintended acceleration caused by trapped floor mats and faulty accelerator pedals, but it also says driver error was to blame in some instances. Toyota settles first wrongful death suit related to unintended acceleration originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 21 Jan 2013 09:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink